I just took the Google Train to Weirdsville

I can't explain it either

What I'm about to tell you actually just happened. I promise none of it is made up.

Let me set the scene: I'm at the Google Pixel launch in London, in a cool warehouse space. So far, so average day for this hipster dude.

I'm waiting to check out the Daydream View demo. I've got half an hour to go, so I'm told to go and try out the 'commute train ride' up on another platform.

There's nothing out of the ordinary so far, as 'experiences' to try out new features of a phone or gadget are pretty normal at press launches, placing them in their optimum context to properly show them off.

So I assume I'm about to go on a whirlwind tour of the new elements of the Pixel phone, all the great things it can do in some new and creative form. I'm intrigued, as this looks like a pretty big set up.

Everything seems normal so far. Probably going to see some cool new navigation stuff.

I head up some stairs and into a 'station'. It's a little train track with the London Underground sign 're-imagined' with the Google logo. I'm told the train will be here in a moment but there's some 'congestion' on the line.

OK...

Suddenly a trolley emerges from behind a curtain, being pushed by a Google rep. On the trolley are two footstools, with wireless headphones on each.

The chap at the entrance to the 'experience' asks me what I like to listen to on my commute home. I tell him a little bit of EDM, because I am (as already explained) one helluva dude.

He looks a touch perplexed, telling me that might not possible.

'How about jazz, pop, classical?' he posits.

I confirm pop is fine. I'm told to get on a stool. I do so.

OK. This is a strange train. But it's cool. I'll probably be alright.

'OK GOOGLE, PLAY SOME POP!' Yells the fellow who took my music choice. And we're off!

I'm wheeled around a corner, lights blinding me slightly, with some jazzy piano music playing in my ears. What's it going to be like? Will this be some sort of Google take on the haunted house? Will I be scared? Will I jump out of my skin or be dazzled by the future as presented by one of the biggest companies on the planet?

There's a man. Playing a piano. He's playing the music I'm listening to. He's very good at piano, I note, as we wheel past.

'OK, you can exit through the curtain on your left!' I'm told, as we grind to a halt.

Wait… what? That's it?

Yes. That was it. I just spent about 25 seconds of my life being pushed around on a trolley in an experience that must have cost loads of time and money to create.

And I have no idea why.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Phones and Tablets Editor

Gareth (Twitter, Google+) has been part of the mobile phone industry from the era of the brick to the tiny device in the pocket... and now watching them grow back up to behemothic proportions once more. He's spent five years dissecting all the top phones in the world as TechRadar's Phones and Tablets Editor, and still can't resist answering the dreaded question - "which new phone should I get?" - with 15 choices.